The truth about Nellie
by bittersweetredcherry
Summary: Sweeney does NOT kill Lucy, he recognizes her, and she has a story to tell. Some people do cruel things for love.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I think you already know i don't own these characters! And, if someone already did a story similar to this one, it wasn't my intention to copy, i just happened to have this idea, and i don't know if some other person came up with it...so, well, now that everything is clear, here's the story:**

* * *

"Beadle, Beadle"

_Oh no…i have to hide somewhere!_ Johanna was in Mister Todd's barber shop. Anthony had left her there, he told her that mister Todd was a good friend, and he agreed to help them elope. She didn't know him yet, but she hoped she could meet him before taking a ride to a faraway place.

But she trusted no one, so she didn't want to be seen by some random woman that came in the shop looking for the beadle…speaking of which. Where was the beadle?

"No good hiding, I saw you"

_This will do_. She went inside a big wooden box, she had to squeeze a bit, but she could fit in.

"Are you in there still beadle? Beadle…"

Johanna heard the door opening. She couldn't help feeling curious about the strange woman's voice, it sounded somehow familiar. So she opened the box a tiny bit, just to take a peek at her.

_The beggar woman from the streets? What is she doing here?_

She saw how the woman wandered through the room. She came to a piece of rotten wood, which had once been a baby's cradle. She took the dirty rag doll from inside it, and pretended to be real.

The woman was singing to the doll, while she looked around the small room. _She must be crazy…_ She started going round in circles, accelerating the lullaby, until someone else came in the room.

He was a tall, strong man, but somehow he looked tired. _The bags under his eyes are enormous…does he even sleep? And who is he anyway?_

"Who are you?" He said, in a deep voice. "What are you doing here?"

_He must be Mister Todd._

"It's the stink of evil from below sir, from Her!" The woman sounded very nervous. _Her? Anthony mentioned a Miss Lovett…but he told me she was a good, caring woman. What would a beggar have against her?_

"She's the devil's wife sir, she had no pity in her heart" _She's almost crying…no, she can't be speaking about Miss Lovett then. _Johanna left her thoughts apart to look at them again. The woman was lifting her head up, to look at Mister Todd.

"Don't I know you, mister?"

They were looking at each other, mister Todd was trying to see if he recognised her.

But they were interrupted by a third person.

"Mister Todd?" From the distance, Johanna could hear judge Turpin's voice.

_Oh no, he's coming to get me! _She looked at them again. _Why isn't he doing anything?_

Sweeney widened his eyes.

"Lucy?" it came out as a whisper, but she was so close to him that she could hear.

"Benjamin…is it really you?" they smiled at each other.

"Mister Todd!" The judge was approaching. Sweeney turned to his wife.

"Listen, he's after our daughter, there's no time for explanations, and you must hide" He thought for a moment.

"Sit here, you will fall to the place where Miss Lovett cooks her pies…I will come down as soon as I finish him off" they held hands for less than a second, while the woman, Lucy, sat down on the barber's chair.

"Wait for me" was the last thing he said before pulling her down.

Perfect timing, as judge Turpin had just entered the barber shop. But Johanna wasn't paying attention to that anymore, she was thinking about what Mister Todd had said before.

"_He's after our daughter"_


	2. Chapter 2

Johanna saw how judge Turpin entered the room.

She thought it was best to just listen, in case they discovered her. Both men were talking about Johanna; Sweeney was saying that she was begging for the judge's forgiveness. _That's not true…and, if his name is Sweeney, why did the woman…Lucy…call him Benjamin? How confusing, something's not right…_

But while Johanna was thinking about the weirdness of the moment, downstairs there was another conversation going on.

Lucy had landed on top of the Beadle's dead body. She had been in the streets for a while now, so she wasn't afraid of corpses. And she also didn't mind that her husband was murdering people and sending their bodies "downstairs". But of course, she had grown insane in the last years, so her mind didn't really distinguish between good and bad.

She didn't have time to inspect the place. Miss Lovett had come in, to take the beadle's corpse to the fire, Lucy deduced. When their eyes met, Miss Lovett looked like if she'd seen a ghost.

"W-What are YOU doing here? How did you come in?"

Lucy lifted one of her damaged fingers, indicating she had fallen from the same place as the beadle.

"So, mister T saw you…you must have acted out you were dead, because you should be-"

"Dead?" Lucy laughed "that's what you wanted all along, wasn't it Nellie?"

She stood still, while Lucy approached her slowly.

"Benjamin knows who I am, he recognized me!" her voice was weak, but she was happy, Nellie could tell.

"All your efforts counted for nothing! You witch…"

"Mister T trusts me; he won't believe anything you say! You are clearly insane!"

"Really? Yes, I might be, but he will believe me. I will tell him the truth."

"You wouldn't…"

"I would, in fact I will!"

And Miss Lovett lost it. She got a piece of iron from the fire, and tried to hit Lucy several times.

****************************Upstairs************************************

"Fellow taste, in women at least"

"What's that?"

"Years might have changed me sir, but I suppose the face of a barber, of a prisoner in the dark…is not particularly memorable"

_What did he say? _Johanna opened the box a little bit again. She could see judge Turpin on the chair. And Sweeney Todd behind him, with a razor. They were looking at each other closely, and the judge had a look of horror on his face.

"Benjamin…Barker?" _Benjamin Barker? The same as Lucy the beggar said? What is going on?_

"BENJAMIN BARKER!"

Johanna let out a scream. She couldn't help it. She wasn't very close to the judge, she didn't like him. But he had cared for her since she was a baby, and she had just seen his death. The murderer being Sweeney…or Benjamin, whoever he was. But he had heard her scream, and was approaching the box.

He opened it and grabbed her by the arms.

"Do you want a shave, boy?"

"N-no! I was only-"he was shaking her, so the hat that covered her yellow hair fell to the ground. When he saw it, the barber let her go.

"Johanna?"

"Who are you?..."

"I'm…your father"

"WHAT?" she couldn't believe it, that man covered in blood, was his father? It couldn't be! Then she had a thought.

"If you are my father…my mother is…" she looked at the chair.

"Exactly"

She cried. She didn't know if it was joy or sadness. The judge wasn't her real father, but instead, her parents were an insane beggar and a murderer?

There was no time for emotional moments or explanations though; they had heard some screaming from below.

"Come with me, I'll explain afterwards" Sweeney, no, Benjamin, took Johanna by her hand and led her downstairs.

* * *

Miss Lovett and Lucy were having a fight.

"You tried to kill me! And you tried to keep me away from my husband all this time! Witch!" Lucy was standing against the wall; Miss Lovett could have hit her and killed her once and for all if it wasn't for the other two entering the room.

"You did what?" both women turned around.

"Mister T…" her eyes opened wide.

"You knew she lived…you…you lied to me?"

"No, that's not what I-"

"Tell him, Nellie. Tell him how you hid me from the doctors, tell him how you tried to poison me several times! Tell him how you gave me away to the judge in the first place Nellie! TELL HIM THE TRUTH!" Lucy smiled while she was speaking, but she was clearly hurt about the subject.

Then she turned to see who was behind her husband.

"Johanna…my baby. You have grown beautiful…" Johanna smiled slightly, she was still confused. But something in that woman made her feel safe.

"Well" said Sweeney to Miss Lovett "will you explain what happened?"

Silence.

"If she doesn't tell you, I will" Lucy approached him, and started talking.

**A/N: Ok, next chapter will start with a flashback from Lucy, and i guess it'll be the last chapter. ****Cheers =)**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: As i said, this is the last chapter. thank you for reading =)**

_Flashback / Memories, however you wanna call it_

* * *

"Present"

_Nellie Lovett was new in town, and she was still looking for a house to buy, or a small flat. She couldn't afford much, her pie shop was new and not very successful. In the meantime, she slept in her shop…sometimes the Barkers let her sleep in their couch. Lucy Barker and her had become close friends, but she had fallen head over heals in love with her friend's husband, Benjamin. She hid it in front of Lucy, but everybody knew. Even the local judge._

"_Good morning madam" the beadle had entered her shop. One of her few customers who actually bought something._

"_Give me two meat pies please"_

"_There you go love, anything else?"_

"_Now that you mention it…my lord would want to invite you to dinner tonight"_

"_Ok…done!"_

"_Thank you, miss, I will be back at eight to pick you up and walk you to his house"_

_An hour later, Benjamin Barker and his wife came in. They had been for a walk with baby Johanna in their arms. They seemed very happy._

"_Good morning Nellie" they both said at the same time._

"_Yes, good morning…." She had to watch them kiss in front of her, she couldn't stand it. Lucy was her friend, but she also hated her. She was with the man she loved, and she had made the decision to separate them, at any price._

"_Good evening Miss Lovett, you look dashing today" The judge didn't send compliments often, so he obviously wanted something._

"_What do you want?" she said as she sat down._

"_You and me, we want something we can't have"_

"_What's your point?"_

"_The Barkers. You want Benjamin, and I want Lucy"_

"_Oh…ok, so what have you thought about?"_

"_Listen up, I can get Benjamin far enough from Lucy so he forgets about her, and she will eventually forget about him too…when he comes back you can have him"_

"_Comes back from where?"_

"_I'll send him to jail, I'm a judge, I can blame him for anything I want, It's his word against mine"_

_She wasn't very happy about sending her love to jail without proof, she wanted him so badly…_

"_Ok"_

* * *

_Days later, Benjamin had been sent to prison. Far away from his wife and daughter._

_Nellie was doing her job very well. Everyday she told her "friend" that the Judge liked her, and he was a good person. One night, she convinced her to go to one of his parties. It would be a mask party, but of course Lucy didn't know that._

_When she arrived there, she didn't recognize anyone. She drank and drank, she began to feel dizzy. She sat on a couch nearby, as she didn't have enough strength to remain on her two legs without falling. And then she saw him. The judge. But something was wrong. Everyone crowded around her, and before she knew it the judge was on top of her. It was a horrible sensation, she was crying in pain, but the guests were watching and laughing at her._

_Eventually, the judge became tired and stopped. He let her go._

* * *

_Although there was a 40 minute walk from the judge's house to hers, she took two hours to get there. _

_Nellie opened the door. It was midnight already, but someone was knocking desperately on the door. She opened it to find Lucy lying on the floor, crying._

"_Lucy! What on earth happened to you?" She sounded very concerned about her, but on the inside, she was smiling._

_As she lay her down on her bed, the baker noticed that her "friend" had no voice left. She must have screamed a lot, she thought. She also noticed that Lucy was starting to get ticks and spasms. What happened that night had affected her, very badly._

"_You're going insane…" she told her, pretending to be worried. "Good" she whispered to herself._

_Rumor spread across the neighborhood, and a month later, doctors came knocking on the door._

"_Good morning, Miss Lovett. We have been told that you have a sick woman at home. We come to take her to Bedlam; we can give her treatments to make her feel better._

_Lucy could hear them from where she was lying. But she still had no voice, only "eek" noises came out of her mouth. She also couldn't move._

_Of course she couldn't. Nellie had been giving her various poisons to make Lucy weaker, but she didn't know it._

"_Oh, sorry, doctor. No, she isn't here anymore, I sent her with her relatives, they told me she was in good hands…"_

"_Oh ok then. Excuse us"_

"_Never mind" she smiled, and as soon as the doctors left, she ran to the judge's house._

_"I can't keep her like that any longer…we have to do something with her before she gets better and tells the truth!"_

"_Don't worry" he went and got a bottle, she didn't know what it was yet._

"_Take me to your place"_

_Since that day, they had both been giving Arsenic to Lucy. Every day they gave her more quantity. Until Lucy fell into a coma._

_As they lacked medical skills, they thought she was dead, so they dragged her body towards the sea._

_What they didn't know is that Lucy had survived. Of course, she had lost her sanity and was now a beggar woman, but Miss Lovett still tried to keep her far away from her shop. When Lucy had come back begging in Fleet Street, she had recognized her, and Nellie had recognized her back. So she did everything possible to keep her away, until that night._

* * *

_End of the Flashback_ "That's what really happened…"

Sweeney couldn't believe her. He wasn't sure if he wanted to believe her.

"Benjamin, you believe me don't you?" she sounded desperate

"I…" he didn't know what to say. Did Nellie…his Nellie, really do all those things? Those awful things? Was his wife talking about the same cheery baker who he had been living with the past months?

Miss Lovett was quiet. She wasn't sure if her mister T would believe the truth.

Lucy could see this, so she decided to stop it. She took a step forward.

"So who's it gonna be, Benjamin?"

"What?"

"You heard. Do you believe me? Or do you think I'm lying?"

"I don't understand-"

"It's her or me" she pointed at Nellie. Everyone was surprised at her reaction.

"Umm…I…." He looked at both women. One of them was dressed in rags. Her once beautiful face was now covered in scars and dirt. And the yellow hair that he used to adore, was now straw-like, and looked darker than it had ever been. He turned his head to the other woman. She was wearing a long, new dress. Her hair was messy, but it was a beautiful tone of brown. She had bags under her eyes and her lips were very thin, but she was still beautiful.

He suddenly felt guilt flowing through his veins. With time, he had grown to like Nellie. But now that he knew Lucy still lived, his feelings towards his wife were alive once again.

"I'm sorry" he said to one of the women

"My heart is speaking to me…it says that this is the right person for me"

He approached her, and took her by the hand; He turned to the now rejected woman.

"Farewell, Nellie"


End file.
